Chapter 54 "Emperor" ruffian

According to the traditional Chinese value concept of judging heroes by success or failure, Liu Bang sat on the emperor's dragon chair and founded the Han family.On the contrary, Xiang Yu can only be included in the role of a clown who serves as a foil to the hero, because he is a loser and ends up being defeated and killed.Both are heroes, far apart. However, although Liu Bang defeated Xiang Yu and achieved the hegemony of the emperor, later generations did not think highly of him. To put it bluntly, he was infamy, treachery, playing tricks, killing Zhongliang, and so on. It can be said that Liu Bang is a complete loser in personality, a person who makes people insignificant. On the contrary, although Xiang Yu failed, people in later generations, no matter how tall or short, all looked up at him.

In the Song Dynasty, Li Qingzhao once wrote a poem "Summer Quatrains", which said: "In life, you will be a hero, and in death, you will be a ghost hero. I still think of Xiang Yu, and I refuse to cross Jiangdong." Of course, one cannot casually assert that Liu Bang is a ruffian and Xiang Yu is a hero, but historical facts must be used to speak. Sima Qian recorded many myths and legends about Liu Bang's fortune in "Historical Records", such as what Liu Bang was born from the mating of his mother and Jiaolong, what Liu Bang had a huge and incomparable nose, and so on.But despite this, in Sima Qian's writing, Liu Bang's image is not tall.

When Liu Bang was young, he was a hawk and a horse, and he was known as a rogue in the village. When he was young, he served as the head of the pavilion in Surabaya. "Large talk, little success", this is how Xiao He, a fellow villager who knew his details, commented on him. Apart from Liu Bang's scheming and good use of people's hearts, Liu Bang's success is largely due to accident and coincidence.According to the records of "Historical Records: The Benji of Gaozu", all Liu Bang experienced in his life were small battles of small scale. The reason why he went west to Xianyang and played triumphant songs all the way was that the armed forces in those places were too weak, not surrender Even if he fled in a hurry, if Xiang Yu hadn't held back the main force of the Qin army in Julu, his soldiers and horses might not be able to get out of the border of Anhui, and they would be driven back to their old nest in Peixian County in despair.If this is a chance encounter, then it is very puzzling that he was able to escape unscathed and unscathed when he had nowhere to go.

After much deliberation, the only feasible explanation is that Liu Bangsheng has the appearance of an "emperor". Xiang Yu, this handsome guy who is very trustworthy, emotional, and full of blood, lost to Liu Bang, who has always given people a very bad impression, and he had to make later generations sigh for him.Of course, apart from his hypocrisy and cunning, Liu Bang's victory was indeed related to the submission of the people's hearts. Liu Bang is very good at using people's hearts and showing off. Xiang Yu cannot be compared with him in this regard. For example, after Liu Bang conquered Peixian County, he was supposed to be the Pei Ling, but he had to pretend to be a virtuous person; after defeating Xiang Yu, he was also the emperor he took for granted, but when he became the throne, he wanted to be the emperor. Making fools of himself and making jokes made people think that the world would be impossible without him, Liu Bang.Liu Bang is a political careerist who is good at disguising. His fox tail hides no flaws, so that the clever Han Xin, Peng Yue and others are mistaken and fell for him. In the end, Liu Bang killed them on the pretext of rebellion after he ascended the throne.

Although Liu Bang used talents, he used them and threw them away. After he became emperor, he didn't pay attention to this group of former troubled brothers and sisters at all, and even wanted to kill them quickly.In dealing with the common people, Liu Bang was able to ignore his own flesh and blood in order to win the world.In order to escape for his life, more than 2,000 innocent and weak women were sacrificed on his behalf. It is not known how he won the hearts of the people for such a person. Of course, when evaluating historical figures, there is no need to pull relationships and praise a person desperately, or try to smear a person, but should be objective and fair.

It's true that Liu Bang is a very small person. He became emperor by means of making people feel cold, but Xiang Yu is not necessarily a small person.Sima Qian unceremoniously criticized Xiang Yu, saying that Xiang Yu was a small-minded man, frivolous and arrogant, coupled with a strong temper, brave and warlike, who killed people at every turn, and even massacred the city. He once killed 200,000 soldiers. people.When he was in Beihai, he "burned the walls and palaces of Yiyi, and captured the old and weak women". It can be seen from this that Xiang Yu is not a good master, at least his behavior is very unappreciative, and simply listing some of his crimes is enough to send him to hell.

The reason why Liu Bang was reprimanded by people was firstly because he was dissolute when he was young, and people did not have a good impression of his glorious history; secondly, he was not people-oriented. In exchange, he became ungrateful and killed Zhongliang after ascending the throne. This may be the most intolerable thing for future generations; Objectively speaking, in terms of politics, economy, and culture, the Han Dynasty founded by Liu Bang can at least rank in the top three, if not the first, in Chinese history.He himself did his best at the beginning of the founding of the Han Dynasty, and made indelible contributions to the recovery and development of the economy in the early Han Dynasty and the maintenance of frontier stability.He abolished the harsh laws of the Qin Dynasty, rested with the people, summed up the rise and fall of generations, and promoted national governance.All of these are enough to prove that he is a wise monarch. Even if he has a disgraceful history, these credits can completely cover up his shame, and there is still enough left, which is enough for him to be qualified to sit down with Tang Zong and Song Dynasty. Zu, Genghis Khan and others competed.

Whether Liu Bang, a man of great power in troubled times, is a hero or a ruffian, on this issue, we have reasons to believe in history, and we also have reasons not to believe in history.Believe in history because history is the only data we can test about the past. Don’t believe in it because historians often surrender to the coercion and temptation of political power, so they will inevitably make nonsense.But in any case, the eyes of the people are discerning, because they are the true witnesses of historical changes. Although sometimes it is unavoidable to be distorted, its mainstream tendency is basically correct.

Liu Bang, the reason why this very unusual person could not enter the list of heroes in the eyes of later generations is that he met an equally unusual Xiang Yu (later Zhu Yuanzhang, who was also self-made, was also notorious after he ascended the throne. Although he denounced his atrocities, he still recognized his hero status, because no one could compete with him at that time). Therefore, in this sense, if you evaluate Liu Bang from the political aspect, Liu Bang is not only great, he is even great; For a low-level role, he can't even be ranked third-rate.